Gardening in the COVID Era is just like WFH - manage it better!! manage what you have!!

I cannot step-out to visit a nursery and select the best possible replacements for plants that were laid to waste by the winter of 2019. Just like most things in life right now, gardening too has taken a new form, something very different from the conveniences of composting at will, adding granular coco peat in heaps, and rotating the planters every time something minuscule seems wrong with the arrangement. Corona is to blame for sure but then, in some way, this is also making me realize the worth of making the best of what Life is offering right now, the best we can afford and accommodate given the current pandemic. I have changed my approach, not letting any aging planter go to waste. I am trying to re-purpose and recycle every bit of gardening supply I have. The idea is simple - I cannot wait for things to get normal and allow the balcony gardening spread to take a more severe beating. As a result, the amount of aloe vera growing across my 4 balconies has increased exponentially. This is one plant you can trust when the going gets tough. Transplanting aloe and growing it in make-shift planters too is easy. For the first time in my 5 years of gardening, I have some degree of respect for the money plant. Until recently, I would frown upon it as an easy plant, an un-special plant, a bit too generic plant, and a lot more not-so-emphatic opinions.

Now, it seems like this is the plant to fill up planters that were getting a regal treatment until the pandemic broke out. Just like the aloe, the money plant is easy to care for and transplant. It can easily survive the high-shadow areas in the balconies. Just regular watering seems like the constant demand and watering, using my arsenal of sprayers, is something I genuinely like doing, so this is not much of a chore for me. Now, the last entry in this list of Corona-restricted household gardening efforts is the snake plant. I have the smaller, stout variety that is very versatile and undemanding - nothing like the women I had dated during my late 20s and early 30s...an easy-breezy plant that needs little caring and basic handling.